One woman's exploration of birth

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Charles Moses Goodrich celebrated his first birthday on Sunday with several of his "moms," the women who joined together to breastfeed the little boy after his mother, Susan, died of an amniotic fluid embolism hours after his birth, one year ago today.

Robbie Goodrich, Moses' dad, hosted the "moms" and their husbands and children for an afternoon party at the YMCA in Marquette, Mich., for games, swimming, pizza and cake. Moses' 2 1/2-year-old sister, Julia, had chosen the theme for the party, "Candy, Candles and Candy Canes." There were two cakes, one made up of lavishly frosted cupcakes and the other in the shape of the number 1, striped with red M&Ms to look like a candy cane, Goodrich said.

The Goodriches, Moses' "moms" and their families

"It's a very severe winter here," Goodrich said of Marquette, a city of 20,000 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. "The moms said they were glad to get the kids out of the house. Moses had a great time going from mom to mom. He was in hog heaven." (Robbie Goodrich, who provided this photo, is in a blue shirt under the painting on the wall, holding Moses, in a red shirt with blue sleeves.)

Peoplemagazine featured the Goodriches in a story last June about the remarkable "cross-nursing" collective that formed to honor Susan Goodrich's desire that her son be breastfed for the first year of his life. Seeing Goodrich struggle to buy breast milk in Moses' first days, family friend Laura Janowski offered to nurse the infant, and the collective grew from there.

Moses was weaned about a month ago, before the Goodrich family went to Virginia for the Christmas holidays, Goodrich said.

In all, 26 women nursed Moses, some coming once or twice, others coming regularly at a set time. Carrie Fiocchi came daily at 9 a.m.; Kyre Fillmore came at lunchtime from the first week until Moses was weaned, Goodrich said.

After a year's leave of absence from his job as a history professor at Northern Michigan University, Goodrich went back to work today.

He had re-arranged his life so that Moses could be breast-fed because "it seemed like the right thing to do for Moses, not only to kickstart his good health, but also for the nurturing, the being held for hours and hours. It turned out that having moms and kids come to the house was great for Julia, too, and it was good for me -- that support. I'm sad that it's over," Goodrich said.